Speaking of Nokia - Engadget got their hands on what is supposedly an internal memo sent to Nokia employees by the company's new CEO. It's... Brutal. As in, brutally honest. There's no sugar-coating here, no unicorns, no glitter. "Nokia, our platform is burning." Update: Android is probably out of the question. Will it be Windows Phone 7, after all? Damn; Palm tonight, Nokia Friday - what a week for mobile! Update: The "Communities Dominate Brands" blog published an in-depth analysis of the memo, which claims with sound arguments that it might well be a hoax.

Wow, that's definitely not Finnish management culture. I've worked for a Finnish company before, and their management culture is rather... arrogantly yet calmly oblivious. I've worked for one Finnish sinking ship (not Nokia) and it's remarkable how similar the management cultures were on the sinking ship. It was one of "Our stuff is awesome, we don't need to look at what the competitors are doing or change anything".

Wow, that's definitely not Finnish management culture. I've worked for a Finnish company before, and their management culture is rather... arrogantly yet calmly oblivious. I've worked for one Finnish sinking ship (not Nokia) and it's remarkable how similar the management cultures were on the sinking ship. It was one of "Our stuff is awesome, we don't need to look at what the competitors are doing or change anything".

But this memo... if real, is a lot different. Good for them.

And that is exactly how I can describe Nokia. Specially their top management.

He's completely right and it's good to hear him say it. Too many companies deny their problems all the way into the grave. I hope they use this opportunity to start actually competing. MeeGo has a lot of potential if it's used correctly, polished and brought to market. Things like QML and better integration with my desktop (and then the cloud, not the other way around) could be powerful tools and entice developers and users away from other platforms. I much prefer C++/QML to Java or Obj-C and I think I'm not alone. I want to see Nokia succeed here even if they are late to the party and have a long way to catch up now. Between the big strategy announcement he talks about in a few days and the MeeGo summit coming up, I'm keeping my fingers crossed we'll get http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/09/nokias-cross-platfo... in the near future.

Honestly, the prospect of coding in any of the above languages gets me about as excited as doing the 69 with a grizzly bear, while having Godzilla shoved up my ass. Besides, weren't these guys supposed to be getting their Python on?

Alternatively, stay on target and bite the bullet. Depends on how far away they really are from getting a Meego phone out. Also take into account that this play might speed up Meego development by an order of magnitude.

They're talking about getting a single phone out this year and it doesn't sound like they have much faith in their own software.

I think the biggest problem with releasing Meego phones/tablets is that Intel does not have a CPU that will work in a smart phone that is ready to be shipped. Meego is a joint project between Intel and Nokia. Speaking of Intel and Meego Intel didn't even talk about Meego at CES when talking about their new but ready smart phone CPU they just talked about Windows Phone 7. So from what I've read it's Intel who is hurting Meego right now not Nokia. That being said I still want a Meego tablet or phone.

I think if they want consumers to buy Meego phones they should port Android's Dalvik virtual machine to Meego and have Meego only C/C++ apps that are going to run 10 times faster than Java apps.

He's completely right and it's good to hear him say it. Too many companies deny their problems all the way into the grave. I hope they use this opportunity to start actually competing. MeeGo has a lot of potential if it's used correctly, polished and brought to market. Things like QML and better integration with my desktop (and then the cloud, not the other way around) could be powerful tools and entice developers and users away from other platforms. I much prefer C++/QML to Java or Obj-C and I think I'm not alone. I want to see Nokia succeed here even if they are late to the party and have a long way to catch up now. Between the big strategy announcement he talks about in a few days and the MeeGo summit coming up, I'm keeping my fingers crossed we'll get something worth supporting in the near future.

Nokia spent USD 150 mn to buy Qt. They are in the process of plowing probably another hundred million into it. They could have done a fork of GNUStep and invested a fraction of that money to have a nice platform with a language and an API that Apple has proven to work marvellously. They would even more or less share the developer base with Apple.

The software stack is not the problem and Qt is demonstrating that it is a perfect viable SDK to almost everything they want to do.

The problem is with the software stack "replacement" by itself. Moving to Meego, disposing everything Hildon/GTK+ in favor to Qt has meant a lot of work already done to be flushed. Now, with Meego in an "almost ready" state, disposing it in favor of another library/platform/language/SDK will bring more delay in this already delayed thing.

I think they would have had to improve Maemo 5, release Maemo 6 and Maemo 7 with a lot of improvements and polishment while refactoring everything building their Meego. So, they would have had something to deliver in the meanwhile.

And thus rumors of Nokia adopting wp7 gain more veracity. He was equally scathing of Symbian and Meego, but they can't very well drop symbian on the low end since their really aren't any true alternatives yet. Meegos main flaw seems to be its lateness, and I think everyone can agree that that is true. They had a working OS in maemo, did the merger with Intel's moblin really set them back that far, one have to wonder if that was a mistake. The memo does not give me much hope for the long term prospects of either.

However wp7 is not a perfect savior. Its more a less a closed platform and there is little Nokia can do to it on the software side to differentiate themselves from other OEMs. The strongest innovation Nokia has on the software side right now is Qt, which doesn't transfer to wp7 at all. So all Nokia could innovate on is the hardware, and lets be frank here they aren't exactly that far ahead of everyone else. Their stuff is generally slower than everyone elses ,the processor at least, but compensate with a decent sense of design and good build quality ,similar to apple really. Both good traits but nothing that other manufacturers can't replicate eventually. The decision to join Microsoft ecosystem is also on fraught with compromise. Join an existing ecosystem may net them some new customers (if Microsofts ecosystem take off) but also remember that only Microsoft will be directly profiting off that ecosystem, same with Google and Apple. This isn't a bad thing really. Its the same position all the other oems find themselves in, but its not what Nokia would find ideal.

I guess what I'm saying is that if Nokia does switch to wp7 its not something I would get excited about (unless your a Nokia stockholder) or really consider a huge win for Nokia. Rather its an admission that they couldn't hack it in the software business and going back to take their places among the commodity hardware oems. This might not be a bad thing for Nokia overall, it may make perfect business sense. But its not really very exciting as an observer. Which in the end is all I am.

Going for WP7 is begging to be one of the blunt bunch. I mean, WP7 is the least customizable, down to the chipset. Going with Android? Also a bad decision.
But they now have to choose the least of two evils. Both will keep Nokia afloat in short or mid term.

So all Nokia could innovate on is the hardware, and lets be frank here they aren't exactly that far ahead of everyone else. Their stuff is generally slower than everyone elses ,the processor at least, but compensate with a decent sense of design and good build quality ,similar to apple really.

I beg to differ.

I'd never say that nokia have a good sense of design myself, at least not in the sense of good aesthetics. Their phone are generally looking the same as every single equivalent or worse. As for the other aspects of hardware design, I don't feel like their their hardware is easier to use or something either. They are just dull, usual cellphones.

In my opinion, Nokia is good in hardware, but because of...
-Yet, build quality. And contrary to Apple hardware, most Nokia phones don't just feel solid... It's incredible what some can withstand. Gorilla or not, you'd not see Nokia put glass and heavy materials in the case of something which is meant to be carried around everywhere.
-Diversity. One of the few brands which sells more than one kind of phone and which puts some care in its non-touchscreen hardware.
-Battery life. The OS has a role to play there, but there are also other factors, like using smaller screens and hardware keyboards.

In my opinion, Nokia is good in hardware, but because of...
-Yet, build quality. And contrary to Apple hardware, most Nokia phones don't just feel solid... It's incredible what some can withstand. Gorilla or not, you'd not see Nokia put glass and heavy materials in the case of something which is meant to be carried around everywhere.
-Diversity. One of the few brands which sells more than one kind of phone and which puts some care in its non-touchscreen hardware.
-Battery life. The OS has a role to play there, but there are also other factors, like using smaller screens and hardware keyboards.

I'll concede thats a better description of Nokia hardware than mine. Battery life is mostly the OS though, sure they could use a slower processor and smaller screen, but do you think they could sell an underpowered phone with a tiny screen in todays market. Their recent higher end phones do have a decent look though. However I was purposefully forgetting some of their design abominations in the past. They still have the same problems though.

Dear Nokia, your worse misstake was to buy TrollTech and Qt, yes, it is a multiplatform framework, but you don't need multiplatform, you need something it can run on your phones, not on the desktop or whatever crap it means "runs everywhere", the N900 was a kickass product that it didn't rely on Qt, it was just Linux with GTK+ and it was great, porting everything to Qt was a waste of time, and Qt wasn't the wonder you thougth it was cause it was and it is still at these day full of bugs so you have spend a good part of your meego resources in fixing Qt than delivering a product.

So, you are doomed, I'm sorry to say it, but is true, you are not relevant, you are late, and meego is not the answer, is even ready anyway?, I still use a phone of your brand, is not a smartphone but the battery last 4 days, It was nice to meet you Nokia.

I would estimate the time taken to make a Qt interface/application set (browser/mail/media player) of comparable quality to the current (gtk) n900 stack, to be around 3 months for a moderate sized team.

It would be faster, it would be portable and it would be feasible. It would not have been QML, that was not out the door, but it would have been Qt as known and loved by legions, and the KDE dudes could have gone to town on the resulting device.

The n900 was 5 years late, under loved and an only child. Nokia rode a lone horse (Symbian) architected with way too much of an emphasis on performance (at the cost of extensibility, convenience and broad usage) straight into the ground.

it would estimate the time taken to make a Qt interface/application set (browser/mail/media player) of comparable quality to the current (gtk) n900 stack, to be around 3 months for a moderate sized team

You dream to much, and the reality says the contrary.

It would be faster, it would be portable and it would be feasible

"It would" differs from "It does", being multiplatform brings zero to the table, it just need to run well on Nokia phones.

The n900 was 5 years late

In the contrary, it was a phone ahead of its time, many many agree with me.

I mean *both* android, webos, and even the iphone ( based off osx which is benefited at one point from BSD) are as good as they are because of those benefits of open systems finally making their way into better products that consumers can experience.

The increase in openness wasn't always apparent back in 1980 when Bill Joy was hacking on BSD. He probably wasn't thinking of the benefits to a apple computer device that woudl be more powerful than any of berkley's computers. But everyone (who uses an iphone) benefited from his work.

Nor was the benefit of a free and open kernel unix like kernel apparent in 1991 when Linus first posted it to the world. No doubt the idea of an arm based phone used by millions running it as its kernel would have been jeered at. Yet again we Android users all benefited from that.

So yes everyday users do benefit from open systems, even when they don't realise it. But, they don't buy a device because of its openness. They buy the devices for the cool features the openness has enabled.

So, can anyone tell me what the "ahead of its time" features were of the n900 that would cause a non developer to purchase it over the contemporary phones of its day?

You really don't need to reach back to the down of BSD and spin it out.

In terms of regular users and the N900? I can only hazard a guess:
- it's pretty (we're talking regular users here right?)
- camera on front and back
- excelent quality main camera (stomps all over Iphone's)
- slider keyboard (onscreen sucks)
- good battery life
- connect and/or charge from standard microUSB (they'll recognize that they can easily find a cable to charge off at least)
- good spread of supported cell technologies for regular users who travel
- 64 gigs of storage space (I'm not sure when the first 64 gig Iphone shipped.. think it was after)
- native Exchange sync support for the business regular users

The turn-offs; price asked by Nokia, lack of carrier sponsorship (no three year contract and 100$ N900 from my provider anyhow), lack of marketing and markets receiving product (it was how long before available in Canada and the US?). Also the app issue if you can't live without a function only available through another device or can't live without running the same game/app title as all your friends.

Even with Meego and ongoing Nokia rumors, apps are still being added and updated in the N900's repositories. Regular users probably don't recognize it in detail but they would recognize the additions of titles (yeah, Apple and Google's title counts have since eclipsed Maemo's library but I don't find as much repetition either).

For me, it was more nerdy things of course:
- an upgrade path from the N810 which happened to include a cell radio
- continued use of Maemo (nice and close to a Debian full distro)
- continued use of collected apps outside of Maemo repositories (scappy, metasploit...)
- ability to cross-compile debian packages (see Debfarm for example)
- developer and user friendly vendor not looking to lock me out of my own purchased hardware
- native integration into my home network and existing apps thanks to rsync/ssh/zim/
- easy of sync over network from any Internet connection (rsync/ssh again)

Turn offs; I reboot about once every three to six weeks for stability (I have a lot installed and use the device pretty hard), multi-touch would be handy and should have been included in the first place (believe that's a BS patent thing though), headphone jack in the way beside the keyboard and/or long strait connector on headphone wire instead of a nice manageable 90 degree bend.

Nokia should learn from Android and WebOS and make it better. I really hope they won't go WP7. That wouldn't make any sense.
I want a real Linux phone. Not like Android or WebOS. There is still no VOIP app for WebOS and Android is still strange.

I want a really powerful flexible Computer in my pocket that can easily extended to do anything, without Steve saying No to my use case, or WebOS' "closedness" getting in the way or Androids automagic making things complex.

I want a platform that I can fully understand and be aware of what it does and how it does it. Being close to upstream Linux Meego could be that platform.

I concur. If Nokia decides to go WP7 across the board I won't buy Nokia again. WP7 looks good, but has nothing under the hood and at the end of the day it's still Windows. Android is okay, but sitting on top of that Java stack hinders it in my opinion.

At this point I really don't know what's taking them so long. Writing phone drivers shouldn't be hard, especially when you make the hardware, and writing a 3G / network stack shouldn't be hard either, especially for someone like Nokia. They need to release some phones with Meego, even if the apps aren't 100% there. They need to market it and they need to allow it on non-Nokia hardware. They need to make it appear cool. If they build the core, the apps will come. QT is an awesome toolset and easy to develop in and a lot of apps will be portable with a little modification.

note: "hard" being relative. I surely couldn't do it in a week, but a company the size of Nokia should have been able to crank out a OS, especially one based on Linux where 80% of the work was done for them already, within a year or 2.

Pure speculation: maybe that same question has been asked (given the lag Nokia now has, probably several times) and someone in the upper management decided to "kick the anthill", i.e. shake things up and change direction. You know, like people shifting waiting lines in supermarkets just to have the "fast cashier" and get out as quickly as possible, or like people so adamant on being in the "lane that moves" that they change traffic lanes back and forth. Needless to say, I dearly hate the latter category but that's off-topic.

Some other posters have also hinted at a possible lack of steady direction as the reason.

I've often thought that it should be legal to use a paintball gun in such situations. Even issue them to pedestrians. Lay on the horn when the person in front clearly can't move; expect paint. Game the traffic lanes screwing everyone else trying to go to the same place; expect paint.

I just think the sound of three or four balls of wax against the driver side window would be a nice "don't be an ass" notice.

Don't forget the big spatters of paint that come along with them. Ok, maybe the windshield hits include a safety risk.

I find I'm usually ahead of them.. and then I'm not.. just not worth playing road lane Tetris when everyone is equally shagged in going the same direction.

The self entitled use of the horn is probably my number one thanks to a noisy corner frequented by idiots in autos. Lane hopping is probably third for me. Number 2 has to be the slinky affect on major multi-lane roads when there is obviously no reason for everyone to be slowing and speeding up rather than running a rational constant speed. Baud how I hate getting lagged behind someone only to find out there was actual reason for speed changes.

I use linux all the time on my desktop, on my laptop and at work, but I seriously: I do not want Linux on my phone, it is not designed for that. Use a special purpose operating system and make me a smartphone that can last more than a day on battery..

I seriously want a smartphone by I want one that, as an absolute minimum, last at least 4 times as long as the best android and iPhones.

I use linux all the time on my desktop, on my laptop and at work, but I seriously: I do not want Linux on my phone, it is not designed for that. Use a special purpose operating system and make me a smartphone that can last more than a day on battery..

I seriously want a smartphone by I want one that, as an absolute minimum, last at least 4 times as long as the best android and iPhones.

Nokia needed to buy PAlm which they had the chance. They could have had WebOs waiting in the wings for a decent phone to run on and fhey could have had a tablet OS all in one go. Their faith on meamo/meego and intel basically set them back.

The issue is that while Nokia was putting their new OS together they were getting flanked by Apple and Google. The tech industry moves quick, meego wasn't moving fast enough to matter, regardless of how technically superior it supposedly is. Palms great software and Nokias great hardware would have been a real competitor in both the tablet and smartphone space. Sometime you have to know when to buy things and build on them as opposed to falling into the nih syndrome.

I keep seeing people going "they need to give up their own OS and go with one from outside". The choice is not simple.

* Getting an OS from outside (ie. WebOS) would be useless. They'd spend too much time, resources, money on getting proficient on that OS. Taking a ready-made product in dropping it in is never as simple as it seems to people outside the software industry.

* Outsourcing their OS to another company (ie. Android or WP7) means giving up control and remaining a mere OEM.

An in-house OS means independence and a complete hardware+software stack. That's why Apple will never share iOS with anybody else. That's why we see companies making their own OS.

Android is a reasonable choice for Nokia, given the cross compatibility of Qt and Dalvik between Android and MeeGo. But it would be a shame for all the money and R&D power they have to go the easy way out. It will work on the short term but be a mistake in the long run.

Much of Elop's criticism of the laid-back management of Nokia is entitled. But adopting WP7 or Android is not the answer. The answer is to shape up and start shipping MeeGo products, and to build up an ecosystem of apps and services based off it.

It seems to me like Nokia just needs to stick to one direction. The new CEO's talk about creating an entire ecosystem suggests that he understands what needs to be done. It is now more of a matter of figuring out how to accomplish that goal.

Would it be possible to port QT over to Android and Dalvik over to Meego? If they could, and with Google's blessing, then it seems like they could have both Android and Meego phones that in the long run compliment their entire software ecosystem as the new CEO is talking about. Since both QT and Dalvik are easy to port it seems to me that they could easily compliment one another. It seems like this would be okay with Google since their only real goal is to sell ads to mobile phones.

I still think it is crazy that they are not using a 100% QT stack for Meego. Hopefully in the long-run they will abandon the GTK+ portion and run just one toolkit. What exactly does the GTK+ portion of the stack bring that couldn't just as easily be done in QT other than legacy support for a platform that never took off in the first place?

Ultimately, Nokia will have to decide whether they want to be more like RIM/Apple - an integrated hardware/software company, Google - providing a software platform for electronics manufacturers to rally behind, or like Samsung/LG/HTC - making generic phones that compete mainly on brand.

If they stick with integrated hardware/software products I think they need to support them better. Not obsolete them before they're even released. They also should also invest more into making of their user facing software themselves. Most of Meego looks like a smaller version of Ubuntu to me.

Would it be wise to attempt to bring up a fourth ecosystem distinct from the three above? I think not.

No doubt in my mind they will go WP7. For now probably only in some high-end phones to test the waters.

No other choice. They cannot outspend Google, Apple or MS. Game over on software.

Microsoft is hungry for WP7 wins and marketshare which is a huge leverage point for Nokia. I would expect Nokia to pay very little for the O/S per phone - perhaps less than $5 per phone - perhaps even zero for some time/quantity. Squeeze MS hard.

All that software money could then be spent making a better phone. Focus on one thing and do it well.

"Nokia to pay very little for the O/S per phone - perhaps less than $5 per phone - perhaps even zero for some time/quantity. Squeeze MS hard.

Oh they can do more than that, they should push for a free OS with 50% cut of app revenue. The problem with using Android is that it only feeds the beast. They should use WP7 to disrupt the market. "
Absolutely. Whips and chains for Microsoft. You make a good point - take some app store revenue as well.

Are you familiar with Nokia? They far outspend Apple, Google and Microsoft. Mobility is their core business. Their R&D department is the size of Apple. Now, as to how effectively they've spent that money, well, sadly, that's an entirely different question and the current situation probably answers it adequately. "
Latest news from appleinsider:

Are you familiar with Nokia? They far outspend Apple, Google and Microsoft. Mobility is their core business. Their R&D department is the size of Apple. Now, as to how effectively they've spent that money, well, sadly, that's an entirely different question and the current situation probably answers it adequately. "
Latest news from appleinsider:

Are you familiar with Nokia? They far outspend Apple, Google and Microsoft. Mobility is their core business. Their R&D department is the size of Apple.

Now, as to how effectively they've spent that money, well, sadly, that's an entirely different question and the current situation probably answers it adequately. "
Nokia R&D is actually far bigger than Apple.

They spend more than any tech company except for Microsoft, and thats total so Nokia probably spends more than Microsoft on phones if you break it down.

Though their inability to come up with a shipping modern phone OS in reasonable time period while spending so much money, does not speak well about management. Sure they had to build a new os, but so did Microsoft. They both realized their current offerings needed a revamp at the same time (or they should have).

However, they have the money and they have talented developers, that they can't do anything with them is a management problem, usually too much management. If they can fix that they might have a chance.

I don't think Nokia has much choice left but to embrace Android. Nokia is known for their hardware build quality and if they made an Android device, I'm sure it would be rock solid. I know I'd buy one in a heartbeat if Nokia made an Android phone or a tablet.

Nokia can build whatever platform they want, it won't sell as much as Apple's or Google's. People are lining at Apple store for months before the product launch, on rumors that it will launch. I was hearing about the iPhone long before it was going to be released. Nobody knew anything about it, just that Apple would make a phone and the fan boys were already praising it like the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Nokia needs to build some partnership with Hollywood. They need propaganda, fanboys, free press, free media time and all the ecosystem that Apple and Google enjoy. Microsoft needs that too BTW.
The product does not matter much nowadays.

Nokia needs to build some partnership with Hollywood. They need propaganda, fanboys, free press, free media time and all the ecosystem that Apple and Google enjoy. Microsoft needs that too BTW.
The product does not matter much nowadays.

The iphone didn't become famous because of marketing. It was just so much better and everybody could see it. Android didn't become the dominant platform because of marketing. It just was an open and free alternative to iphone and everybody(but apple fanboys) could see it.

What I don't get is why Nokia wants to work with Intel or Microsoft. Don't you want to work with company's that want you to succeed?

The iphone didn't become famous because of marketing. It was just so much better and everybody could see it. Android didn't become the dominant platform because of marketing. It just was an open and free alternative to iphone and everybody(but apple fanboys) could see it.

What I don't get is why Nokia wants to work with Intel or Microsoft. Don't you want to work with company's that want you to succeed?

I can't disagree more. I have a N900 and when people see it, they like it and they usually tell me that they want an iPhone too. When I tell them it is not an iPhone, they tell me that Android looks more and more like an iPhone these days. The N95 went unnoticed. Nobody has ever heard about it.
I believe you greatly underestimate the grip that marketing has on you. You think that a good product will sell but you don't see that a product is only good if you think it is good. And what you think is good is only what they tell you to think.
I was looking at a documentary about TRON, the movie, the other day. AFAIK, Nokia has been sponsoring the movie. The guy was talking about the original movie in the 80's and told that today there is more power in an iPhone than in a thousand of computers at the time. I was shocked. An iPhone, Really? Why not a Nokia N8 or whatever? Well that is because Hollywood is located in California and Nokia is unknown there.

I believe you greatly underestimate the grip that marketing has on you. You think that a good product will sell but you don't see that a product is only good if you think it is good.

Marketing does not work on me. I read a lot of articles and reviews about the devices and hardware. I bought 2 400 euro phones from Nokia before my first 400 euro Android phone. Those Nokia phones were a big waste of money. Within 1 month I stopped using them as a smartphone and started using them as the most cheap ass phones you can find.
I almost bought a N770/N800 but without an internet connection they would soon become toys to me. I almost bought a N900 but I felt unsure about the software platform(I was right to wait).

The N95 went unnoticed. Nobody has ever heard about it.

I wanted an iphone but I hate itunes so I waited for somebody else to provide the same experience. After 3 years Nexus came and delivered. Every Nokia device review failed to impress me.

Nokia had 3 years before android to react to iphone and none of their devices(including N95 and N8) came even close. That is why they didn't sell. The combination of Nexus + Android 2 impressed the world and started the quick rise to dominance. I am not naive and I now marketing is extremely important but I hate weak products with awesome marketing.

Marketing works on everyone, whether you like it or not. Marketing works via psychological processes you can't actually control. I always get a good smile out of people claiming all snobby about how marketing doesn't work on them.

Marketing works on everyone, whether you like it or not. Marketing works via psychological processes you can't actually control. I always get a good smile out of people claiming all snobby about how marketing doesn't work on them.

So what word should I use? If I always try to make decisions based on information instead of feelings I would say marketing doesn't work.

So what word should I use? If I always try to make decisions based on information instead of feelings I would say marketing doesn't work.

information = marketing.
Hide the bad information and make the good one in every people's head. That is good marketing. If the information provided to you is that the product is awesome, you will buy it. If the product has defects but you don't know it, or they make you think those defects are not important or that they are feature, you buy.

information = marketing.
Hide the bad information and make the good one in every people's head. That is good marketing. If the information provided to you is that the product is awesome, you will buy it. If the product has defects but you don't know it, or they make you think those defects are not important or that they are feature, you buy.

But that would mean that every piece of information is provided by the right source. That is a pretty big conspiracy. And also really weird that you wouldn't find the flaws after buying the product.

"Marketing works on everyone, whether you like it or not. Marketing works via psychological processes you can't actually control. I always get a good smile out of people claiming all snobby about how marketing doesn't work on them.

So what word should I use? If I always try to make decisions based on information instead of feelings I would say marketing doesn't work. "

Thom is right. Marketing does influence everybody in many different and subtle ways.

In a way its like shouting. If you receive enough info about one thing, it tends to drown out the rest. So much so that unconciously you give more credibility to the thing you "know" (via marketing) about.

The best way to counter this is through thorough research, so you inform yourself, but it is fighting a bit of a losing battle. I mean, these companies are spending billions.

"[q]Marketing works on everyone, whether you like it or not. Marketing works via psychological processes you can't actually control. I always get a good smile out of people claiming all snobby about how marketing doesn't work on them.

So what word should I use? If I always try to make decisions based on information instead of feelings I would say marketing doesn't work. "

Thom is right. Marketing does influence everybody in many different and subtle ways.

In a way its like shouting. If you receive enough info about one thing, it tends to drown out the rest. So much so that unconciously you give more credibility to the thing you "know" (via marketing) about.

The best way to counter this is through thorough research, so you inform yourself, but it is fighting a bit of a losing battle. I mean, these companies are spending billions. [/q]

Most reviews on the internet are written by enthusiasts (some of them professionals), and these days you'll find many enthusiasts are fanboys. That's how, for instance, Engadget could do a camera showdown between iPhone 4 and Nokia N8, and get the iPhone to win. In reality, however, the N8 has one of the better ordinary phone cameras on the market, whereas the iPhone's is utter shit, even compared to the one in my much cheaper Sony Ericsson X10 Mini.

When considering that something as objective as photographic fidelity can be rigged by testers to advertise their favourite brand, then just imagine how much they do with words like "experience" that are so important these days. Testing often is advertising.

The only thing the iPhone did better was that it had a good touch screen interface and a good browser. Oh, and a nifty voicemail interface (does anyone care about this?). At lauch, it lacked 3G, MMS, multitasking and cut & paste, all of which were implemented on Symbian phones.

Somehow, it has taken Symbian longer to implement a decent touch screen interface than it has taken Apple to get most of the other things in shape.

At lauch, it lacked 3G, MMS, multitasking and cut & paste, all of which were implemented on Symbian phones.

*Blablabla*
As an owner of a Symbian phone, I give a sh***t on features like multitasking, cut & paste, MMS, etc. when the usability of said features is more than laking.

E. g. somebody mentioned that Nokias N95 went unnoticed because of a lake of marketing. Sorry, the N95 went unnoticed because it was a typical tech fetishist's product: A long list of features without any thought about usability. The N95 was a typical dinosaur device: Like dinosaurs growing bigger and bigger with the same brain until the reach the end of the flagpole, the N series packed more and more hardware into the device without any thoughts about developing the OS.

People tend to forget that some of Apple's innovation lie in the parts Apple did willfully omit e. g. no stylus and no physical keyboard input. Despite most 'smartphone users' that were fixated on this (thus all the comments at the beginning of the iPhone era about how Apple will fail miserably without such hardware input), Apple succeeded by providing a usable alternative to those means of input.

Apple's strategy was the right one: What they did provide was done right. They focused on certain features building a usable 'base device', delivering other features with updates when they were done. Now have a look at what Nokia does ..

Apple's "innovation" doesn't lie in what they omit. The touchscreen is just a different input device, not even necessarily a better one. Better for web browsing, worse for almost everything else. Apple's "innovation" was never about omitting MMS, cut & paste or multitasking, they simply couldn't deliver at the time.

Of course, they needed the same people who queued up for the first gen iPhone to queue up for the 3G version next year, so in that sense their innovation lie in what they omit. They're very good at using their fan base for marketing, so making a first generation product with glaring flaws to go along with the bling is an excellent way to get to sell the same product twice.

The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren't taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we're going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem.

I think this memo presented a honest and truthful view of current state with Nokia, from its CEO. It is not a memo about company's future direction, but an assessment for its to make a choice.

Google will ban third party UI (Sense, TouchWize, etc.) from Android. Once again, no customization allowed.
Android will live in 2 branches : "phone" and "tablet".

So, why should Nokia use WP7 and Android with their restrictions ?

Now Meego : ARM and x86. It works on phones, tablets or computers.
It's a "real" Linux (not a Java VM on a Linux kernel) with applications made with Qt. Remember Qt is also available on Symbian^3.

I think Nokia have to :
- stop building a new model every week and concentrate on, say, 10 models
- say goodbye to the S60 platform !
- sell feature phones with Serie 40 only
- a few midrange smartphones with Symbian^3
- one or two high-end smartphones and a tablet running Meego
- use Microsoft as a service provider
- engage someone in the marketing department !

Non-touchscreen phones should be considered as low-end phones. For that kind of phones and the "Touch & Type" series, juste use Serie 40. Nothing else.

Why would people who don't like touchscreens only get low-end phones ?

Besides, that's the approach which all other phone manufacturers currently follow. Should Nokia follow it too, they'd become just another phone manufacturer which makes the same product as every other. Not being able to compete on merit, they'd have to compete on cost. And the cost battle is a very tricky one, especially when you've pissed off a part of your user base by beginning it and are not known for the quality of your products in the area where you try to compete.

I've never quite grasped what went wrong with Symbian. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

As far as I know, this is its history:

Psion make an incredibly efficient and user friendly OS called EPOC32.

Nokia and others get involved with Psion, who spin the EPOC32 team off as Symbian.

Most of the UI stuff is stripped out in favour of badly made device specific stuff as Nokia and others start to push it into every device smarter than a 3310 and dumber than a laptop.

Symbian at this stage has almost total market adoption, until the iPhone comes along and re-interests people in these smartphones.

A few years later and its 'ecosystem' is in serious decline and no-one even mentions it in the same breath as competitors whom it continues to outsell.

So what I don't understand is why the effort didn't go into bringing developer tools and nicer UIs to Symbian. Why try for Meego? Surely Symbian is, at the core, a superior OS for mobiles, so however crap the UI or how unenthused the developer base, it is still less effort to improve than a brand-new OS. No?

...
So what I don't understand is why the effort didn't go into bringing developer tools and nicer UIs to Symbian. Why try for Meego? Surely Symbian is, at the core, a superior OS for mobiles, so however crap the UI or how unenthused the developer base, it is still less effort to improve than a brand-new OS. No?

What is, at its core? The kernel? I personally don't find Symbian UI that bad. I played with N8 at shops, the UI is even better.

Among all the Symbian phones I had, Nokia E71 was very stable, but I find SE P1 was a real solid phone. I changed from SE P1 to Nokia E71 because P1 don't support 3G.

But the phones after E71 were real disappointment. Frequently hanged and would reboot by itself! That was the time I bought my first Android, Nexus One. Now I also own Samsung Galaxy S.

When I was using Symbian phones, I used them like a phone. After I am using Android, I am treating them more and more like a personal computer. Now I am starting to understand, why kids these days like to hack their phones...

Even after 4 years from the release of the original iPhone, and competing companies still don't have a competitive product! it shows how lame these people are: they pay no attention to their competition, they pay no attention to online discussions (hey, even spending one hour in a forum would reveal many market trends), they only pay attention to their own hype, fueled by themselves.

If I run Nokia, the first thing I would do in 2000 would be to bring out a fully featured smartphone, complete with support for all standards. Nokia had the infrastructure, back then.

Today, I don't care about Nokia at all. I care about Qt, because in the land of C++ there is no other GUI toolkit that allows me to write quality applications in such a short time.

it shows how lame these people are: they pay no attention to their competition, they pay no attention to online discussions (hey, even spending one hour in a forum would reveal many market trends), they only pay attention to their own hype, fueled by themselves.

I would show some respect. Without Nokia, the iPhone would not exist. Remember that Nokia developed most of the tech underlying mobile phones, the entire infrastructure, and so on. It was mostly Nokia that got mobile phones to every corner of the globe - rich or poor.

That is a FAR greater achievement than just making a decent smartphone (which already stood on the shoulders of giants).

Also the reason the iPhone was even possible is because the technology was available. In all the years before the iPhone release there was no high-quality touchscreen available at a somewhat afordable price.

I think the designers at Apple always wanted to make such a device but the technology just didn't exist. So when it got available they probably had already created most of everything else that was needed.

Ok, I respect Nokia for its achievements regarding cellular phone technology, but what the actual phones? the fact that Nokia doesn't have any good smartphone, despite being totally obvious were the market goes, makes me lose all respect for them.

Are they going to drop out and leave Intel holding Meego or put resources into developing it out fully? I mean; no prepackaged malware, no litigious hostility for "jailbreaking", no defective hardware "for the user's safety".. in these regards, they got it right. Even Android is more user hostile than Maemo ever was thanks to hardware vendors shipping defective product.

On the other hand, the Maemo change to Meego did break it's Debian heritage and cause me to question how many of my collected apps would not be ported to the new package format. (Not seeing much happiness in the Metasploit/Ruby area of Maemo)

Oh well, I have a year or two left in my N900. Hopefully someone has an equally open device with hide away physical keyboard and the closest possible thing to a fully general distro running it. Maybe Nokia's management will get things going again. If they do adopt Android, I hope they at least keep the Maemo community values in the mix and ship something like the Nexus but with a slide-out four row keyboard and whatever new sensors are the norm by then.

(I'd also like to know how much data Android feeds back to Google. At minimum, the "ecosystem" around it is gonig to need some polishing.)

True, I was thinking Intel keeps Meego as the most open OS and closest to a standard Linux distro. Someone else builds hardware and ships it with Meego and open hardware drivers.

The Maemo community has something to migrate too. The mobile market retains at least one open option with a sane software distribution.

For me, the reason I stopped carrying a PDA was because my mobile phone finally included a real OS that offered an upgrade to my phone/PDA combinations. I mean, i really did try to find an Android phone before lucking into a reasonable price on an N900 (another reason Nokia's in sht; didn't ship the N900 to more markets at a more reasonable price). Every Android phone I looked at seriously had some deal breaker involved; usually the result of OEM implementation (wtf? enabling root shell is not a single package download that works on any Android device?). Google's overbearing need to consume and own all my information didn't help much either.

I didn't know there was a financial keynote planned soon. That explains the rumor in this article. Basically, someone is spreading rumors to manipulate the stock price. At the same time I just noticed the article was from engadget. That explains even more.

"I think Nokia have to :
- stop building a new model every week and concentrate on, say, 10 models "

As many as ten? Let's see what they need:

1. Basic phone; let's make this a dual-sim phone because Nokia already makes a basic dual-sim phone. Only really makes phone calls and does SMS.

2. Feature phone. Touch with keyboard, basic browser, basic camera. For people who don't demand much from their phone but would like to take photos and listen to MP3s. Similar to N97 Mini (I think that's what it's called) or the C6. Could run Symbian.

The two smartphones would need to run a proper up-to-date smartphone operating system.

Any more phones just dilutes manpower and stops Nokia from developing that up-to-date smartphone operating system. It's also very confusing for consumers to be faced with so many choices. Especially with Nokia's current 25 different models.

Getting a web-engine more or less 100% compatible with webkit in iPhone (that is the css animations should also work which not really is the case in Android) that would make a good start to get apps on board.

Getting Ansca to port Corona (and the other program once - generate for several) would generate another boat load of apps.

I don't think they need to be completely screwed if they stick to MeeGoo.